The stunt community is the most physically courageous department in filmmaking — and the least recognised by Hollywood’s most prestigious institution. Stunt coordinators design and execute the falls, fights, car chases, fire sequences, and wire work that define blockbuster cinema, yet the Academy Awards have never created a competitive category for their craft. This page covers every stunt role, the award shows that do honour them — the Taurus World Stunt Awards, SAG Stunt Ensemble, and Emmy for Stunt Coordination — plus a full archive of winners and the professionals behind the most extraordinary action sequences in film history.
The stunt department spans pre-production design through complex on-set execution, requiring specialists in combat, driving, wire work, fire, high falls, and equestrian performance.
The Oscar has never had a competitive category for stunt performance or coordination. This is the most persistent and widely-discussed omission in the Academy’s history, and the stunt community has campaigned formally for a category since at least the 1980s. The argument is straightforward: stunts are a highly skilled craft contribution to filmmaking, they are present in the majority of the Academy’s Best Picture nominees in any given year, and the performers who execute them risk their lives in a way no other film department does.
The Academy’s position has historically been that stunt work is difficult to separate from the broader action sequences that include camera work, editing, sound, and VFX — and that a stunt Oscar could incentivise more dangerous filmmaking. Critics of that position argue that the same logic would preclude Oscars for cinematography (which depends on editing and production design) or sound (which cannot be separated from music).
The closest the Academy has come: In 2012, it awarded Hal Needham an Honorary Oscar — the first and so far only time the Academy has specifically recognised a stunt professional’s career contribution. Needham accepted with a broken back, having been injured on set weeks earlier. The moment was both a tribute and an illustration of what the profession demands.
In the absence of an Oscar category, the stunt community has built its own award ecosystem — led by the Taurus World Stunt Awards, the SAG Stunt Ensemble Award, and the Emmy for Stunt Coordination.
SAG Award winners for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture, from 2010 to 2025. The award is presented to the stunt ensemble as a collective, not to individuals.
| Ceremony | Film | Stunt Coordinator |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 · 31st | Deadpool & Wolverine | Wade Eastwood |
| 2024 · 30th | Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One | Wade Eastwood |
| 2023 · 29th | Everything Everywhere All at Once | Timothy Eulich |
| 2022 · 28th | Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings | Brad Allan |
| 2021 · 27th | The Trial of the Chicago 7 | — |
| 2020 · 26th | Avengers: Endgame | Spiro Razatos, Sam Hargrave |
| 2019 · 25th | Avengers: Infinity War | Spiro Razatos |
| 2018 · 24th | Baby Driver | Jeremy Johns |
| 2017 · 23rd | The Jungle Book | — |
| 2016 · 22nd | Mad Max: Fury Road | Guy Norris |
| 2015 · 21st | Unbroken | R.A. Rondell |
| 2014 · 20th | The Lone Ranger | Tommy Harper |
| 2013 · 19th | The Dark Knight Rises | Tom Struthers |
| 2012 · 18th | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 | Greg Powell |
| 2011 · 17th | Inception | Tom Struthers |
| 2010 · 16th | Star Trek | Gregg Smrz |
| Ceremony | Series |
|---|---|
| 2025 · 31st | The Boys |
| 2024 · 30th | The Last of Us |
| 2023 · 29th | Stranger Things |
| 2022 · 28th | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier |
| 2021 · 27th | Westworld |
| 2020 · 26th | Game of Thrones |
| 2019 · 25th | Game of Thrones |
| 2018 · 24th | Game of Thrones |
| 2017 · 23rd | Game of Thrones |
| 2016 · 22nd | Game of Thrones |
| 2015 · 21st | Game of Thrones |
| 2014 · 20th | Game of Thrones |
| 2013 · 19th | Game of Thrones |
| 2012 · 18th | 24 |
| 2011 · 17th | True Blood |
| 2010 · 16th | Heroes |
Game of Thrones won the SAG Stunt Ensemble Award for Television eight consecutive years (2013–2020), a record that reflects the sheer scale and ambition of the show’s battle sequences — from Blackwater to Hardhome to the Battle of the Bastards. Stunt coordinator Rowley Irlam oversaw much of this work and became one of the most lauded stunt coordinators in television history as a result.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood • 2019 • Dir. Quentin Tarantino
Played by Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Cliff Booth is arguably the most charismatic stunt double in cinema history — which is impressive given that his primary job duties appear to be driving his boss around Los Angeles, fixing a TV antenna, eating canned dog food with his pit bull Brandy, and occasionally almost certainly murdering his wife on a boat.
Cliff is the stunt double for Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a fading TV Western star whose career trajectory can be charitably described as “downward.” While Rick has the name above the title, Cliff has the actual skills, the better hair, and a suspiciously calm disposition that makes everyone around him slightly nervous.
His professional philosophy appears to be: do the stunt, don’t ask questions, feed the dog. In that order.
Cliff lives in a trailer behind a drive-in movie theater — a career outcome the stunt union’s benefits coordinator had probably warned about. He is blacklisted from most studio productions due to the aforementioned wife situation, which means he spends most of his time as Rick’s driver, handyman, best friend, therapist, and the only person in Hollywood who will tell Rick the truth about his career.
When the Manson Family arrives at Rick’s house in the film’s climax, Cliff — having unwittingly smoked an acid-laced cigarette — defeats three of them using only a dog, a can of dog food, and the casual violence of a man who has nothing left to lose and a very good pit bull. Critics called it one of the most satisfying climaxes in Tarantino’s filmography. The dog received no award nominations, which remains an outrage.
The Bruce Lee Scene: In one of the film’s most controversial sequences, Cliff has a flashback to a fight with Bruce Lee on the set of The Green Hornet in which Cliff either holds his own or wins, depending on your interpretation. Bruce Lee is played by Mike Moh and depicted as arrogant and boastful — a characterisation that Lee’s family and many fans found deeply unfair. Tarantino’s defence was that the scene is from Cliff’s point of view, which is to say the point of view of a man who may have killed his wife and definitely punched a Sharon Tate murderer with a dog. His reliability as a narrator is, charitably, contested.
Midway through the film, Cliff picks up a hitchhiker — Pussycat, played by Margaret Qualley — and drives her out to Spahn Ranch, a crumbling movie-set-turned-Manson-Family-compound in the hills above Los Angeles. Cliff has worked at Spahn Ranch before and wants to check in on the owner, George Spahn, played by Bruce Dern, an elderly, nearly blind former employer of Cliff’s who is now, clearly, not entirely in charge of his own property.
What follows is one of the most quietly menacing sequences in Tarantino’s filmography. The ranch is crawling with young Manson followers who watch Cliff with the kind of serene, unblinking hostility that suggests they have either achieved enlightenment or are planning something terrible. Almost certainly the latter.
Cliff moves through them with the unhurried confidence of a man who has performed high falls for a living and is therefore not especially intimidated by barefoot teenagers with bad intentions. He finds George, confirms he is alive and marginally functional, declines several unsettling invitations to stay, and leaves.
The scene works because Cliff never visibly reacts to how wrong everything feels — he just absorbs it, files it somewhere behind his eyes, and drives away. It is the performance of a man who has seen enough of the world to know when to leave a party, and this is very much a party to leave.
Brad Pitt won the Oscar for his performance as Cliff Booth — a role that required him to be simultaneously the coolest, most dangerous, and most unemployable person in every room. In his acceptance speech, Pitt thanked his co-star Leonardo DiCaprio and noted that “I’ve got coloured things in my jar” — a reference to a metaphor from the film — before the speech pivoted into genuinely poignant territory. The performance is widely regarded as one of his finest: effortless, sly, and hiding real menace beneath total ease.